Election 2024: Derek Tran holds a narrow 102 vote leads over Michelle Steel

The race for a California Congrssional district is between Rep. Michelle Steel, left, and Derek Tran.

One of the most hotly contested congressional races that is still undecided involves two Asian American candidates against each other.

At last count hours ago, Democrat challenger Derek Tran leads incumbent Republican Michelle Steel by only 102 votes in the race for the 45th Congressional District seat in Orange County, California with 94% of the votes couted.

“Voters in Orange and Los Angeles County deserve to have their voices heard, and we are confident that as the remaining vote-by-mail, provisional, and conditional ballots are tallied, Derek Tran will emerge victorious,” reads the statement from the Tran campaign

Steel had an huge lead hours after the polls closed Nov. 5 but as the votes slowly came in, Tran's support chipped away at the Steel's lead. On the morning of Nov. 18, Tran had slim advantage of 32 votes. That lead grew as the ballots were counted today.

Both major parties poured in more than $46 million into the contest, making it the most expensive House race in the country.

CD45 crosses county lines to take in a portion of Los Angeles County and includes all of Garden Grove, Westminster, Cerritos, Buena Park, Placentia, Hawaiian Gardens, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Artesia, Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, and La Palma, as well as parts of Brea, Lakewood, and Fullerton.

It has a large influential Asian American population makes up 39% of the population, the largest ethnic group in the district It  includes Little Saigon, the largest Vietamese American neighborhood in the US. spanning Garden Grove and Westminister.

Steel, a Korean American, has been accused of using the same red-baiting strategy that she allegedly employed in 2022 to successfully defeat Taiwanese American veteran Jay Chen. The tactic of painting Tran as a communist sympathizer was not as successful.

"Michelle Steel has been known for red-baiting her entire campaign and career this is something that's very disgusting," said Tran. "We're seeing xenophobic attacks by here. It's just baseless claims by someone that's losing and she's expecting to win based on that messaging. It's not going to work this time around. I am son of Vietnamese refugees who fled communist Vietnam."

If Tran's lead holds, Orange County, long a GOP stronghold in a state dominated by the Democrats, could have two Asian American members in Congress. Democrat Dave Min, a state senator, won the right to represent District 47, replacing Representative Katie Porter who was unsuccessful in her bid for the US Senate.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

2024 Election: Asian American voters did provide the winning margin, but ...

AANHPI voter tendencies was a surprise last Nov. 5.

ANALYSIS

Yes. Prognostigators, including this blog, were right: Asian American voters did provide the winning margin in the Nov. 5 Presidential election, but not in the way most people had hoped. Donald Trump should say "thank you" to the Asian Americans who voted for him.

Even though most AAPI voters favored Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump was able to chisel out a tiny sliver of the AAPI vote to help him win back the White House. Besides the lies, false promises and thin praises, he had the help of foreign hackers who spread misinformation and promoted old country values to splinter the AAPI vote.

Trump did not have to win the vote of the majority of the AAPI electorate, he just had to win over enough to bolster the majority of his votes coming from the White electorate.

AAPI voters cast their ballots for Trump by 38%, which was a nine-percentage-point increase from 2016. When the votes were tallied, Trump wound up with 5% more AAPI votes than he received in 2020. That was the so-called winning margin.

RELATED: Misinformation campaign made many Chinese American voters wary of the Democrats.

Besides Asan Americans, Trump made inroads in almost every demographic. 

The story was the same with the Latino community, which felt largely ignored by the Democrats. 

In his victory speech ion elecction night, Trump said his campaign had built the "biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition" in U.S. political history.

"Young and old, men and women, rural and urban. And we had them all helping us tonight," Trump said.

"They had some great analysis of the people that voted for us. Nobody's ever seen anything like that. They came from all quarters—union, nonunion, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American, Muslim American. We had everybody, and it was beautiful. It was a historic realignment, uniting citizens of all backgrounds around a common core of common sense."

As it turns out, a significant chunk of Latinos were also against the undocumented immigrants who Trump erroneously claimed, threatened Latino American vworkers.  Among Latinos, 45% broke for him this cycle, whereas just 29% voted for him in 2016 — a 16 percentage point shift.

The votes that Trump was able to woo away from traditionally Democratic voting blocs was enough to tilt the votes his way.

A majority (54%) of Latino men helped fuel that rise for the soon-to-be 47th president. 

Most of those AAPI votes came from men. For the first time, a gender gap appeared among the AAPI community: most women voted for Harris and enough men voted for Trump. 

FEWER VOTERS IN 2024

While Trump lost the Asian American vote to Harris by a margin of 56%-38%, he improved his share of that demographic by 4% from his 61%-34% loss to Biden in 2020, according to an exit poll from NBC News.

Curiously, although counting is still ongoing, Trump actually received fewer votes in 2024 than what he received in 2020 when he lost to Biden. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Harris received 12 million fewer votes this time around than the votes that went to Biden in 2020.

TOTAL VOTES CAST IN LAST TWO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS    

                            2020          2024   Difference

       Democrats    81.2M         69M          -12M

        Trump         74.2M          72.6M      -1.5M

I'm not given to conspiracy theories, but Democrats thought they had the overestimated their get-out-the-vote ground game. Or, the GOP's voter suppression strategy -- which began in 2020 when Trump refused to concede his presidency to Biden was enough to question the efficacy of American democracy and 13.5 million voters refused to take part in the election.

So what happened? The loss of 13.5 million voters is the answer to Harris' loss and Trump's victory. Did White supremacists scare enough White to vote along racial lines; to hell with policies? Was the anti-abortion Catholic vote in Pennsylvania and Ohio enough to swing those states towards the OGP? Was the constant drumbeat coming from Trump enough to disillusion enough voters from participating in the democratic process? Did the GOP's voter suppression strategyiesvia state legislatures and governors and Trump-appointed  judges more effective than most people thought?

The answer to that question is complicated. and probably involved all of the above elements. 

“2012 represented the high-water mark in Asian American support for a Democratic presidential candidate, and it has been going down ever since,” Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data told NBC enws. “The pendulum has started to swing back.”

WHOSE 'ECONOMY'?

Although AANHPI voters who voted for Trump, along with other voters who switched from the Democrats to the Republicans, the economy was cited as the chief reason for the change. They believed that a man who declared bankruptcy six times would do a better job in fixing the "economy." 

“If you’re unemployed or employed, if you’re retired or working, everyone feels the pain of inflation,” Ramakrishnan told NBC in an interview. “That was a significant headwind for the Democratic Party, including Harris.”

RELATED: Pre-election survey outlines AANHPI concerns

By most measures, economists around the world cited the US economy was the envy of the world. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the "economy" was measured in national and global terms: more people were working, the rate of inflation was under control, and the poverty and jobless rates were down. Abstract numbers, ordinary Americans couldn't relate to compared to their everyday encounters with their "economy."

For most Americans, what they called the "economy" was more out-of-pocket: the price of gas, groceries and rent, all of which did not go down. That begs the question, who was profiting for the high price of essentials? 

RACISM'S IMPACT

The initial wedge driving AAPI voters to the Republicans was the affirmtive action debate. The Biden-Harris administration solidly behind the concept. Driven by white anti-affirmative action activists convinced a segment of the AAPI community to question their loyalty to the Democrats. That portion of the AAPI community, mostly first generation immigrants who were unfamiliar with the civil rights movement saw the policy discriiminated against their children who they felt were not getting proper credit for their academic achievements in their university applications.

The rise in attacks against Asian Americans affected the overall outlook of the AAPI voters. The communities with a tendency to stay out of the limelight started to think in a "law and order" mindset, an area usually associated with conservatives. Republicans were able to use the racist attacks to drive the wedge even deeper separating the conservative and more progressive 

In Oaakland and SanFrancisco, after a series of anti-Asian assaults, Asian Americans were major backers of movements to recall their progressive District Attorneys perceived as being soft on crime.

The immigrant community, most of whom sought the American dream that working hard would be the road to success. And the success they sought was more in alignment with the status quo, which had the White majority atop the cultural and economic ladder.

And the majority of Whites -- primarily the non-college educated -- was Trkump's base. Democrats believed White women would vote for Harris because of her support for womens' right to choose their health options, But when it came to crunch time, White women could not see a woman of color in the role of President. 

As  stated earlier, Asian Americans were not alone in their slight turn to the right, they were joined by enough Latino and Black voters -- enough to dilute the traditional Democrat-voting communities and lead to Trump's apparent victory.

That winning margin Asian American political activists believed, would swing towards the Democrats, They were wrong. I was wrong. Instead, enough AANHPI voters went along  with the White majority to tilt the final vote towards Trump. Those AANHPI voters who along other people of color who voted for Trump believed the best way to achieve the American Dream was to go along with the status quo where Whites remained at the top of the American heirarchiy.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Remembering and honoring AANHPI veterans on this day

Chinese American oseph Pierce served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Asian Americans have served in the US military since the Civil War, according to the Library of Congress. 

Immigrants from Asian have a long history of service in the United States military. One of the first  soldiers was Joseph Pierce (E). He signed up for Company F of the 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry (E) on July 26, 1862, 9 days after the Militia Act took effect. He reached the rank of corporal before retiring.

Some scholars say the history of Asians coming to the defense of their adopted country goes back to the War of 1812, when Filipinos residing in Louisiana, referred to as "Manilamen" residing near the city of New Orleans, including the Manila Village, were among the "Baratarians", a group of men who fought with Jean Lafitte and Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

RELATED: WWII Filipino American veterans who raised me

Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Filipino, and other Asian Americans fought for both the Union and Confederacy in the Civil War. Many Asian immigrants served in the Navy (E), as this was the only branch that readily accepted immigrant recruits. Furthermore, many Asian Americans had sea experience from working on cargo ships and fishing.

According to the US Census, 264,695 Asian Americans have served our nation while another 27,469 are Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander military veterans. 1 in 3 Asian American military Veterans were 65 and older; and 1 in 5 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Veterans were 65 and older. 

FYI: Learn more about AANHPI veterans.

For Active Duty Military, 52,433 Asian Americans Active Duty including by 8,854 Officers and 43,579 Enlisted; There are 8793 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders Active Duty Members including 486 Officers and 8,307 Enlisted. 

The first Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI) to reach general officer rank was Brigadier General Albert Lyman, part Chinese American and Native Hawaiian, was the commanding general of the 32nd Army Division that fought in the Leyte campaigns in the Philippines in World War II. The highest ranking AANHPI in the military was Eric K. Shinseki, who was the former Army Chief of Staff.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Asian American and Hawaiian singersr receive Grammy nominations

SCREEN CAPTURE / YOUTUBE

Bruno Mars teamed up with Lady Gaga for Grammy mominations.

Filipino American singers Bruno Mars and Olivia Rodrigo, Indian American Norah Jones and Hawaiian Kalani Pe'a eceived nominations for the 2025 Grammy Awards.

Pop star Rodrigo, who is in the middle of her GUTS World Tour, was nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Medium with the song “Can’t Catch Me Now” which she wrote for the motion picture “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.”

Bruno Mars sduet with Lady Gaga, on "Die With A Smaile" was nominated in the Song of the Year category. The duo also received a nod in the category of Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

        FYI: See the complete list of Grammy nominations

Nora Jones, daughter of Grammy award winner Ravi Shankar, received a nomination iin the category Best Traditional Pop Vocal Albun with her album "Visionis." 

Jones, Rodrigo and Mars have won Grammys in previoius years.

If you can't access this video, here's a link.

The Grammys would be a new experience for Kalani Pe'a. His album "Kuini" was noinated in the Best Regional Roots Music Album.

Except for Kalani Pe'a the other Asian American nominees will be up against some of the biggest names in the music industry in cluding Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

Beyonce dominates the 57th Grammys with 11 nominations derived from her album Cowboy Carter. JShe will be boing up against another music superstar Taylor Swift, in a number of categories along with Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter.

The Grammy Awards show will be held on Feb. 2, 2025 and can be warched on rhe CBS neetwork and on the streaming network Paramount-plus.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Report: Chinese Americans were deluged with misinformation favoring Trump, attacking Harris

From the moment Vice President Kamala Harris was endorsed by President Biden, a massive disinformation campaign targeting Chinese American voters spread through social media platforms.

Even though Chinese Americans, like most other Asian American subgroups (Vietnamese being the exception) lean heavily towards Democratic candidates and policies, the disinformation campaign emanating mostly from foreign agents, was successful enough to woo enough Chinese American just voters to the Republican ticket, to dilute the impact of the community's overall political preferences.

“We have seen the potential of disinformation to polarize communities, disrupt the social fabric, and undermine trust in our institutions,” said SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University

“We saw it during the COVID-19 pandemic, January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and we see it in international conflicts unfolding as we speak.”

Chinese Americans, the Asian subgroup with the  most registered voters, were the target of a campaign to cause confusion and mmisdirection and it was barely noticed by English-speaking media because most of it was in Mandarin or Cantonese

A study by Chinese for Affirmative Action found that disinformation and the emergence of artificial intelligence posed a serious threat to American democracy. Tuesday's results of a Trump victory confirms the negative impact the strategy had on Harris' attempts to outreach to Chinese Americans.

In Chinese-language social media spaces, right-wing fake news dominates — deifying Trump, stoking fears of communism, and casting doubt on the integrity of elections. Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), monitored Chinese-language disinformation through our Chinese Digital Engagement program, which the San Francisco-based civil rights organization launched in 2019. 

Through PiYaoBa, CAA's Chinese-language fact-checking website, more than 600 pieces of disinformation were found just in the past year, from June 10, 2023 to July 29, 2024, which have collectively amassed 11.6 million views. Out of these, 228 pieces of disinformation with total views of 4.05 million across Chinese-language social media platforms such as WeChat, X, YouTube were directly about the 2024 election. 

The majority of disinformation has been about politics, more specifically, supporting Trump and Republican policies while attacking Biden and Democratic policies. We are also closely monitoring disinformation that favors Democratic Party candidates and policies.

“About 80% of the attacks on Harris are essentially personal attacks,” said Jinxia Niu, CAA’s program manager of digital engagement, in an interview with The Guardian, “very misogynistic and insulting, almost like shouting insults in the street.”

One theme that took hold and spread like wildfire was the false narrative that Harris was the "other woman" who stole a husband from his wife in referring to the romantic  relationwhip she had with California politician Willie Brown, who had been separated from his wife for over a decade before Brown and Harris had their relationship.

“They (Chinese voters) still believe that a woman’s most painful point is being labeled as a mistress,” Niu told The Guardian. “Their assumption is that women can only gain status through their marriage, as the subordinate lover or wife of a man.”

Other Key Findings from the CAA report: 

● Twitter Leads in Spreading Disinformation - WeChat is losing ground as a platform for Chinese-language disinformation. For the first time since we began tracking it, Chinese-language disinformation is spreading mostly via Twitter, far surpassing WeChat, since Elon Musk took over and rebranded it as X. PiYaoBa found that 48% of Chinese-language disinformation is spreading via Twitter versus 25% for WeChat. Still, WeChat and Telegram remain popular channels for circulating election disinformation. 

● The Deification of Trump Cements his Outsized Influence - Trump continues to be a major influence with right-wing Chinese American content creators. Following the assassination attempt on Trump, they’ve treated him like a god-like figure, cementing their belief that only he can save America from communism — a disinformation narrative unique to the Chinese-language space. 

● Chinese-Language and Cultural Trauma is Being Exploited - Although much of the Chinese-language disinformation translates directly from English-language disinformation, right-wing Chinese American social media influencers translate and amplify disinformation in a way that exploits Chinese-language and cultural trauma. 

● A.I. Generated Disinformation Acts as an Excelerator - Artificial Intelligence technology is exacerbating the situation. This is the first time we have seen in-language A.I.-generated disinformation playing a role in shaping elections with unprecedented power.

The source, or sources, of the misinformation likely came from abroad. Besides the People's Republic of China, Russia and Iran have aggressive disinformation campaigns to sow chaos and give the impression of a US in decline in order to affect the West's democratic elections.

Most of the fake news on Chinese-language social media followed certain themes, or narratives. Among them: 

● Narrative 1: Trump is the only savior of the U.S. and today’s problems are because he is not in charge. 

● Narrative 2: The “extreme left” policies of Biden, Harris, and the Democratic Party are destroying the U.S. and bringing it closer to communism. 

● Narrative 3: The Biden administration opened the border to allow undocumented immigrants to vote for Democrats in the 2024 election. 

● Narrative 4: Leftists are masterminds behind various world events and natural disasters and are playing a long game to control everything. 

● Narrative 5: The 2020 election was stolen from Trump and widespread voter fraud, especially involving noncitizens, may lead to another stolen election in 2024.

The Chinese American community was vulnerable to unmonitored disinformation campaigns., especially when done in launguages or dialects other than English. According to the 2024 Asian American Voter Survey, among 432 registered Chinese American voters, 81% speak languages other than English at home, the highest percentage among all AAPI ethnic groups, Additionally, 17% of Chinese Americans get most of their news from non-English sources, also the highest rate across all ethnicities.

The Guardian also squoted Dorothy He, the communications director at the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA).

“The goal of racialized disinformation when it comes to elections is to suppress voter turnout in the fastest-growing electorate in the US or sway them to vote a certain way.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

What just happened?

WTF, America? 

Over half of you voted for Donald Trump, a man guilty of 34 felonies, declared bankruptcy with his six business ventures,  convicted of rape, guilty of fraud, unfaithful to his wives, and a narcissistic racist fascist.

He cannot finish a comprehnsive thought without insulting, belittling somebody or whole groups of people like Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. 

And, he regularly seeks the advice of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who wants to weaken NATO and destroy western democracies by sowing distrust in democratic institutions by spreading misinformation and interfering in free elections.

You'd rather have a man who has already failed as President in his first term in office.  What he had going for him, apparently, was that he was white and a male.

I'm exasperated. I have no words to express my deep disappointment in the gullibility of the voting majority.

More on the Presidential election later. I need to take a breath and meditate.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a developing story. Check back later for updates. For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Harris writes opeds for Asian American news outlets

Donald Trump declined to attend the national APIA town hall where Kamala Harris spoke.

In the hours before election day, Kamala Harris was campaigning all over Pennsylvania while her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is doing the same in Michigan.

According to the polls, Harris and Donald Trump are in a virtual tie lending weight to every vote being cast by a divided nation.

In an unprecedented outreach to the Asian American communities, Vice President Harris outlined her vision for a New Way Forward in op-eds published by major Chinese, Filipino, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese American news outlets.

Harris' message is repeated in the periodicals: “There is so much at stake in this election, and Americans are ready to turn the page on the chaos of the past.," she writes. "You deserve a leader who not only sees you, but stands with you.”

RELATED: Newspaper endorsements

This past week, Harris penned a series of op-eds outlining how her vision for a New Way Forward will deliver for Asian American communities. In the op-eds, Harris underscores the enormous stakes of this election for Asian American voters on key priorities like financial freedom, health care, and safety – and contrasts her plan to build an Opportunity Economy with the dangers of a second Trump term.

To reach this broad coalition of diverse voters where they are, Vice President Harris’ op-eds were published by five major news outlets that serve Chinese, Filipino, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese American communities, including the World Journal, Asian Journal, Yonhap News Agency, The Juggernaut, and Việt Báo Daily News.

In her message to Filipino Americans, she touched on the long history between the US and the Philippines and the economic, cultural and military ties and commitments between the two nations.

"Filipino Americans are also at the heart of our healthcare system. I will protect the Affordable Care Act, which has reduced the uninsured rate among Asian Americans to record lows. President Biden and I worked to lower the price of prescription drugs and cap the cost of insulin at $35 for seniors, and I will go further to reduce costs for all Americans," she wrote. 

"My plan will also strengthen Medicare to cover home care for seniors, easing the financial and emotional burden many Filipino Americans face when caring for their elders. I took care of my mother when she was sick with cancer—I know that caregiving is about dignity."

"During Filipino American History Month, we honor the ways Filipinos and Filipino Americans have helped bring our nation closer to fulfilling the promise of America," she wrote while reminding readers to vote on Nov. 5.

The op-eds, tailored for each community, are part of the historic investments by Team Harris-Walz to engage with and mobilize Asian Americans, who make up the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc and are poised to play a pivotal role in this election. 

In the final stretch of the presidential race, Team Harris-Walz launched waves of English and in-language mailers and fact sheets; print, radio, television, and digital ads; and hosted in-person events across every battleground state aimed at these critical voters.

For Asian Americans, Harris, Walz and other Democratic stalwarts like Sen. Tammy Baldwin, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, met with Filipinos in Nevada, Sikhs in Michigan, Hindus in North Carolina, South Asians in Georgia, Hmong in Minnesota and took time to celebrate Diwali.

FYI: Read the op-eds below:

• Asian Journal: Freedom, Opportunity, and a New Way Forward for Filipino American Families

• The Juggernaut: Charting a New Way Forward for South Asian Americans

• Việt Báo Daily News: Cùng Nhau Tranh Đấu Cho Quyền Tự Do | Together, We Can Fight for Our Freedoms

• World Journal: 為美國華人創造安全與繁榮的未來 | Creating a Safe and Prosperous Future for Chinese Americans 

• Yonhap News Agency: 함께 전진합시다: 재미 한인들의 번영하는 미래를 만들기 위하여 | Let’s Go Forward, Together: Creating a Prosperous Future for Generations of Korean Americans

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

Watching the AAPI vote in Nevada and Georgia

ANALYSIS 

Watch the AAPI voters in Nevada, Georgia and elsewhere to determine the influence of these politically engaged communities.

If the polls are to be believed (and there is plenty of reasons to doubt their methodology as it relates to the modern voter) the Presidential contest is a virtual tie.

Even though millions of voters have all ready cast their ballots, the bulk of voters will be voting Tuesday, Nov. 5. They enjoy the act of going to a polling place and marking their ballots and then dropping their ballot in the ballot box.

Unfortunately, in some states, especially in the Red states whose legislators have tried to make voting more burdensome and difficult. Expect long lines late into the night. There might even be harassment, typical of bullies, most of whom appear to be Trump supporters. Not only do they harangue or mislead people standing in line, they have also been threatening poll workers.

Regarding the AAPI electorate, from NPR:

"If Latinos are the largest-growing demographic group, Asian Americans are the fastest. And since 2008, they have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. They could have the biggest impact in Nevada, where they are more than 9% of the eligible-voter population. They were 5% of the electorate in the state in 2020 and went for Biden by a 64%-35% margin.

"They could also be crucial in places like Georgia. The AAPI population in the state has grown by more than 50% since 2010. While only about 3% of eligible voters in Georgia, there were more than 45,000 first-time AAPI voters in the state in 2020. They voted about 58% for Democrats, a margin of more than 7,000 votes in Democrats’ favor — just from first-time AAPI voters, almost the margin that decided the state."

RELATED: Endorsing Kamala Harris

In another article, an NPR analysis reports:

University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock has a rule of thumb that for Democrats to win Georgia: they have to capture 30% of white voters and Black voters have to comprise 30% of the voters who cast ballots. But Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie says that rule may need a slight update, as Asian Americans and Latinos become a larger share of the electorate.

Judy Zhu is voting in her first presidential election, after casting her first ballot in the 2022 midterms once she became a US citizen. Like many new voters, she has been taking her vote very seriously, watching debates and researching the platforms of the candidates and political parties.

Zhu says she has friends in their community across the political spectrum, from strong Trump or Harris supporters to undecided voters and those who are just plain fed up. For Zhu, the economy, health care and democracy are driving her vote.

“I think I have definitely changed my mind a couple of times before I finally decided who to vote for,” Zhu says. While she did not want to share publicly who she landed on, she did say her and her husband did not vote for the same presidential candidate.

"Desi" is a term Indian Americans use to describe themselves.

Georgia's South Asians

Georgia’s AAPI population grew by 48% between 2012 and 2022, according to the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta. Indian Americans, Korean Americans and Chinese Americans comprise the largest AAPI communities in Georgia.

South Asians are one of the most progressive Asian American communities. A shift  towards the Democrats dates back to 9/11 and the policies and racial animus that followed. A recent Pew Research Center study found that 68 percent of Indian registered voters identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning.

The rapidly growing AAPI population is made up by a large group of recent immigrants who identify more with their home countries and haven't wholly bought into the umbrella coaition of Asian America, therefore more open to arguments from both parties. The AAPI voter turnout rate in Georgia has lagged behind White and Black voters, but participation is increasing.

But no one can deny the excitement among South Asians over Harris' candidacy. Indian Americans saw the highest voter turnout among Asian Americans in the last two presidential elections, compared with white voters, according to research firm AAPI Data, an organisation that collects data about Asian American communities. In 2020, 71% of Indian Americans that were eligible to vote did, a 9% increase from 2016.

That trend looks set to continue into November, according to Karthick Ramakrishnan, co-founder of AAPI Data, who told the BBC he believes Harris's candidacy could boost South Asian voter turnout to 75% among eligible voters.

“While having the first ever person of South Asian origin as vice-president of the United States was important to many South Asian voters, it’s a much bigger deal to have someone from one’s background in the highest office in the land,” he told the BBC.

As a former refugee who came to the US from Cambodia in 1980, Tha Vin says the language some Republicans, including Trump, are using to describe immigrants is shaping his vote.

Tha Vin says this election felt so important, he gathered his whole family to go to the polls together.

“I’m a gun owner, like I find I want to vote Republican,” says ThaVin, who came to the US from Cambodia in 1980.. “But the rhetoric toward immigrants has been something that has made me not want to vote Republican.”

According to AAJA, the AAPI turnout rate increased by 7% between 2018 and 2022 midterm elections.

"Pinoy" is a term Filipinos use to describe themselves.

Nevada's Filipino voters

In Nevada, the contest is so close it is difficult to conclude which way the state's voters will lean Tuesday. Asian American voters have been targeted by both parties with specific events aimed at this demographic, especially Filipino American, who represent the largest group iamong Asian American communities.

The Asian American population in the Silver State represents nearly 12% of the electorate, and over 109,000 Filipino Americans are eligible voters, solidifying their importance in a state often decided by narrow margins, writes the Asian Journal, a Filipino American publication.

Despite inroads by the Repubican Party,which belatedly began wooing the Asian electorate including a recent rally featuring Trump, a survey by AAPI Data, over two-thirds of Filipino American voters will be casting their ballots for Harris.

Both candidates promise no taxes on tips resonates with the AAPI workers, many of whom work in the hotel and service industry. 

Surveys show Harris’s focus on health care resonates with Filipino Americans in Nevada, many of whom work in healthcare roles, writes the Asian Journal. The Democrats also emphasizes preserving Social Security and enhancing senior care—issues that matter greatly to Filipino American families in multi-generational households and provide care (with no economic benefits) for their elderly relatives.

On the eve of voting day, the Harris campaign released a series of opeds for ethnic publications aimed at various Asian American communities, including the Asian Journal, whose readership is mostly Filpino.

The op-eds build on record-breaking investments by Team Harris-Walz to engage with and mobilize Asian Americans, who make up the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc and are poised to play a pivotal role in this election.

“There is so much at stake in this election, and Americans are ready to turn the page on the chaos of the past.\," writes Harris. "You deserve a leader who not only sees you, but stands with you.”

In the final stretch of the presidential race, Team Harris-Walz launched waves of English and in-language mailers and fact sheets translated into several Asian languages; print, radio, television, and digital ads; and hosted in-person events across every battleground state aimed at these critical voters.

“In the Filipino community, you get one person, then they tell their whole family. People are filling out their voter cards, and they’re sharing it with all their cousins and their aunties on WhatsApp,” said Assemblywoman Erica Mosca, a Filipino American and senior adviser to the Harris campaign in Nevada as reported by NBC. “When we’re motivated, we will vote.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

The choice for President has never been more clear: Vote for Kamala Harris

As someone who used to be on the editorial board of a mediium-sized newspaper, I am surprised at the trend of among the nation's publications to not issue an endorsement for President of the United States.

The decision of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to not give a recommendation for President made the news recently. The nonendorsemnt was met with surprise, criticism, resignations of some of journalists and subscription cancellations. 

However, it should not have been a surprise nor should it have been reported as something unusual. The Post and the Times were not alone in not endorsing a preference for President. Many newspapers did not issue an endorsement  as a matter of longstanding policy. However, others joined a growing trend among periodicals to avoid the appearance of partisanship, according to a surve by according to a survey by Semafor.

FYI: See what publications have given or not given an endorsement for President.

Let the facts speak for themselves and let the readers make up their own mind, they rationalize. Or, so they say. 

That reasoning rings hollow because the same publications have no compunction in making recommendations for other elected offices or complicated measures. 

Despite the trend to avoid making a recommendation, it was still a disappointment to see many respected publications like the Washington Post and L.A. Times because many of those same publications have called this year's election as one of the most important to face the nation in years. It is not, as some jaded critics claim, a chose between Tweedledee and Tweedledumt.

Regular readers of this blog know that the very existance of US democracy based on the Constitution is at stake.

The contrast between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is so stark it seems that it would be easy to make a recommendation that would steer the country in the direction of democracy as put forth in the US Constitution.

Could the newspapers' abandonment of their traditional endorsements be out fear? Might the giant corporations that own the majority of newspapers be hedging their bets in case Trump somehow wins the election and follows through with his threat of punishing "the enemy withinin." He has often put mainstream media at the top of his enemies list.

 There may be another factor for those newspapers not part of corporate chains but owned by billionaires that is less complicated than deciding the fate of the country. It may come down to common greed. Trump's tax laws that favor the top 1% may be a factor in some of the billionaire owners of major newspapers like  Jeff Bezos' Washington Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong's Los Angeles Times, both of which chose to not make an endorsement.

Still, many newspapers, including the august New York Times, the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle have made recommendations, putting country above profit. Of the newspapers that did give an endorsement, most of them recommended Harris.

For the staid, stuffy New York Times, the choice is a no-brainer:

I've often criticized the NY Times for its coverage of Asian America. But in this instance, we are in agreement. 

There are many reasons Kamala Harris should be our country's new President that have been outlined by experts more knowledgeable than I. Beginning with the economy, giving the right of a woman to decide her own health issues, strengthen the right and ability to vote and she believes in science. 

Harris would become the first US President with an Asian racial heritage, and will widen the image of America beyond the white, male image of what an American is that has been fostered for centuries. This alone is the main reason many people are  supporting Trump, even though his supporters won't say it outright. They don't want to lose their status at the top of the ladder and the social and economic privileges that  position gives them.

The choice for President has never been more important and for that reason, Views From the Edge will break from tradition. It may not matter to anyone what this little blog recommends, but then again, perhaps it will. Every vote counts. Each of us must do what we can, therefore, I recommend a Vote for Kamala Harris.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.